Tuen's Blog

We arrived in Singapore on the evening of 15th Dec and as usual, stayed at my parents’ place. Unlike in January when we were here, this time around, we had a much less hectic schedule. We spent a lot of time with my parents and simply relaxed at home. We spent a bit of time with the cult of course, and visited some relatives, but mostly, I did not even announce our visit to Singapore. I even had time to complete the Bali holiday video whilst in Singapore.

We had the usual Christmas gathering where most of the relatives came over to my parents’ place. Other memorable events included a gathering of our former home catechism group, organised by Jobina at her home; a cult visit to St. James’s power station for a pub experience, where Stephen Chua celebrated his ‘birthday’; and a lunch with my Godparents whom I hadn’t seen for a couple of years.

The cult also paid a visit to Francis’ niche where we said some prayers for him.

After two short weeks, we left for home on 30th Dec and arrived on New Year’s eve.  It was good to be back.  But we left behind our two daughters. The boys of course, were already home, since they didn’t join us on the Singapore leg of the holiday. Melissa is still in Singapore as I write this, and is due back at the end of the month. Wen was originally due to come back around this time, but left a few days after us because Rachael and Tassia were going to come back with us to spend a week here, and of course Wen was going to look after them. More on their visit in a later post.

Some photos of the Singapore visit can be found here.

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I am typing this post whilst flying over the Indian Ocean, on a Virgin Airlines flight. It’s the 8th of December. We are on our way to Bali for a family holiday, with members of our clan. All in, there should be about 50 of us attending I think. We shall be in Bali for about a week, and since from Bali to Singapore it’s such a short hop, we decided to spend about two weeks in Singapore after that. The three boys won’t be flying to Singapore, but will fly directly back to Melbourne, together with Al. And our two girls will be extending their stay in Singapore for a further two and four week period respectively. Looking forward to Bali and Singapore…

We bought a jigsaw puzzle back from Singapore and we’ve started on it. Well, the family started on it the first evening, but ever since then it’s mainly been me who’s been putting it together.  I estimate that it will take about 4 to 6 months, and I intend to put up progress photos on the blog to track the building of the puzzle. It’s a 2000 piece puzzle and I intend to have it framed up and hung on one of our walls. In fact, I might even try to construct the frame myself. I’ve been reading up on the basics of woodworking.

The last time we built a 2000 piece jigsaw was probably over 10 years ago. That piece took many months to complete too, and is now hanging on one of our walls although the colour has almost totally faded away. The new jigsaw would be a nice complement to it.

The week before Chinese New Year was spent visiting with relatives and old friends. Very often, Mary would be out with her friends, I would be out with mine, and the kids with theirs. Of course, there were the common friends as well, when the whole family would be together. We were very fortunate that Mary’s brother loaned us the use of his spare car, and this helped us tremendously in getting from place to place. Of course, we also had occasion to use the MRT, buses and taxis.

Photos of some of our visits can be found here.

And of course, the main purpose of this visit was to celebrate Chinese New Year with our family and relatives. We had our reunion dinner at a restaurant called “No Signboard Restaurant” and we had our 7th and 8th aunties with us, as well as 8th Aunt’s eldest daughter and son-in-law and their friend. The dinner was good, but we couldn’t finish all the food, especially at the kids’ table, so we had to ‘ta pao’ back most of the food. The following few days were spent visiting and receiving relatives, and of course, we had the usual gambling sessions, which seems to be an essential part of CNY celebrations. Thankfully this year, I did not lose much money, and we had the pleasure of the Chias joining us for one of the sessions as well. Oh, there was a ‘turd’ story that I need to tell, but maybe not in this main post.

 Photos of Chinese New Year reunion dinner and visits are here.

And  we even found time to visit the Singapore Flyer. It’s nice to fly once, and maybe once more at night to catch the city lights, but I cannot imagine ’flying’ more than that.  And they were selling annual unlimited passes!

More Singapore Flyer photos here.

All too soon it was time to leave Singapore for home in Melbourne. 

We were pleasantly surprised at the turnout at the airport to see us off, even though we had told everyone that there was no need to see us off. We were really touched, and it made leaving that much more painful.

Anyway, we had a pleasant flight home, and baby slept throughout the flight, so that gave us some peace and quiet. Mary managed to sleep too, but I only managed to grab about 2 or 3 hours of sleep. It took me quite a few days to adjust to the jet lag after arriving home.

At Melbourne airport, we were very fortunate to clear customs very quickly. The customs officer saw Mary struggling with baby, and decided that we could skip the queue and proceed directly out of the customs area. We were so quick that we even had to wait about twenty minutes for Tony to pick us up; though fortunately Jie arrived earlier and took baby and the other kids home first. Thanks Tony for coming to pick us up from the airport!

Photos of the airport farewell can be found here.

It had been a lovely visit, and we were sad to leave our family, relatives and friends. And of course, we would no longer have access to all our favourite Singapore foods like Chwee Kuey, Fried Hokkien Mee (yummy), Chilli crab, Fried Oyster in egg, Yakun butter toast etc. But we have made our home in Melbourne now, and there was certainly the feeling that it’s good to be home. Of course, nowadays with the internet, email, blogs and so forth, physical distance is no longer such a great impediment to communication and sharing of relationships.

Jie sent me to the airport on 10th Jan, and I took my flight to join Mary and the rest of the family in Singapore. The flight was uneventful and Mary met me at the airport when I arrived. Surprisingly, the weather was not too hot, and I didn’t feel clammy and sweaty. I had a little trouble adjusting to the time difference the first two days, but this sorted itself out after that. The first week was spent catching up with old friends, especially members of the cult. We met at the Chuas and we also spent an evening out on the town after visiting Francis’ shop. Co-incidentaly, the Lims were in Singapore at the same time, so it was great catching up with them. Furthermore, their good friends, the Murphys, whom we had met before, were also in Singapore and we had an opportunity to catch up with them too. During this time, we stayed at my parents’ place.

More photos can be found here.

On Friday 16th, we boarded the cruise ship Legends of the Seas for a 4 day cruise to Penang and Port Kelang. It was really nice on board ship, and we spent most of the time eating. The amount of food available and the number of times the food was served was almost sinful. It’s like you simply pass the time awaiting the next meal! Anyway, we also participated in some of the activities on board, like rock climbing, karaoke, Bingo and of course, I spent some time at the casino. No luck for me at the casino unfortunately! At Penang and Port Kelang, some of us disembarked to do some shopping on land.

It’s interesting that when we disembarked and entered Malaysia, we didn’t need our passports, nor did we need to clear immigration. All we needed was our cabin cards. This must be some kind of arrangement between the Malaysian immigration and the operators of the cruise. I wonder if the same process applies to foreigners entering Singapore from on board a cruise?

Photos of the cruise can be found here.

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Mary and most of the kids left for Singapore on 27th Dec.  They’ve been having a very good time catching up with old friends, visiting old places and of course, enjoying the Singapore food.  Jie and I are at home but I will soon be joining them as well.

I’m looking forward to being re-united with my wife and other kids!

Let’s hope Jie doesn’t turn the home upside down whilst we are gone!  :)